Love is a Canvas
by Anna Catherine
Summary: Logan finds Veronica at the beach, where they confront the issue of their first kiss and remember the past. Spoilers up to 1x18 Weapons of Class Destruction.


Love is a Canvas

_"In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life; It goes on". – Robert Frost_

The sand was warm underneath her; chalky, and the color of copper. Pebbles sunk in between her fingers and nails while she glided her hands along the sand's bumps and ridges. The horizon was covered in deep purples and reds, covering a pastel blue background. Veronica's bare feet sunk into the sand, dipping her toes in and out. She kicked up tiny rocks as the sole of her feet traced small patterns onto the sand piles.

Logan could see her frame from what he felt, was a mile away but was only mere feet. Chills ran up and down his back leaving goose bumps on his arms when the wind blew. He'd tried desperately to forget what had happened between them, to push it to the back of his mind and focus on the fact that Duncan was missing but it was impossible to forget that kiss, their kiss, a first kiss. Whenever he closed his eyes at night, to sleep, it was no longer Lilly or his mother's face he saw. It was Veronica's.

Veronica barely noticed him at first. If it hadn't been for the fact that the sleeve of his pale sweater was touching the bare skin of her arm he would've gone unseen for some time. She acknowledged him with a small tilt of her head, curve of the lips and then turned her attention back to the dancing waves set before them.

Logan looked down, slightly out of nervousness and habit. His eyes glanced over at her hand that was closest to his own, writing in the sand. His chest tightened when the word she'd been tracing had turned into a name, completed.

Veronica could feel a certain shift in the air between them even if she'd tried forgetting he was there for a few seconds, just flashes of moments. Her own eyes gazed down at what her finger had stumbled along and drew in a breath as she'd written 'Duncan' without any real knowledge of doing it in the first place. She quickly and embarrassingly ran the palm of her hand over it, wiping away the name she had once knew almost better than her own.

"Your dad said I could find you here," Logan said attempting to explain himself even if his reasoning for being there were just as unclear as anything else.

A picture of Lilly still stood in its frame near his bed and every time he looked at it lately he smiled a little, more than usual. Lilly would've gotten a kick out of the fact that Veronica had kissed him and even more of one knowing he kissed her back. She probably would've cracked some sadistic joke about it being destined and then cursed them both quite raucously.

Logan had always thought Veronica was hot in the kind of way you think your best friend's girlfriend is hot; fantasizing about her but realizing she's off limits for numerous reasons and the feelings stopped there. Now he felt Veronica was partly his and he was partly hers if only because their lips had met and his hands had traced the small of her back like a map he would never fully understand. She was that map, those lines that could never be figured out and yet one kept trying to read them correctly, over and over again looking for the right destination.

He missed her long hair sometimes, although he would never say anything. When she stuck her hands into the sand, leaning back on her elbows to stare at him, he was reminded of how her hair used to swing against the small cobble stones and become one with them.

Veronica watched as his hand flung up into the air and made it's way to her cheek, making her skin warm while he brushed away a strand of golden hair that had made it's way in front of her eyes, resting on the bridge of her nose. She tried not to think about how they'd gotten this way, how he didn't make her want to vomit any longer. Somehow it had just happened. He had always been a ticking time bomb and now she still wasn't sure of his intentions, of what he was doing near her or even looking for her and yet she felt no fear. She lifted her own hand after his had fallen back to the sand and she tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.

"You went to my apartment?" she asked as if he'd never been there before. A part of her still thought of them as the Logan and Veronica from the beginning of the school year; mortal enemies. She was sure he'd drawn them fighting in his school notebooks like in some anime cartoon, twisted limbs, his fist in her face, not that she hadn't imagined doing numerous unmentionable things to him. A few months ago they despised each other, now they were sitting side by side, sinking into each other's presence.

"The office," Logan answered and looked up at the sky, tilting his head back.

He remembered nights like these where the sun was beginning to set and Lilly and Veronica would be sprawled out across some blanket Duncan had brought. He and Duncan would throw around a Frisbee, cursing each other out whenever the other didn't catch it. Lilly would flash him a smile and Veronica would wave like the slightly innocent child she had been, and that was miraculous for anyone who spent that much time with Lilly.There had been a time, a moment, when Duncan had crashed to the sand and Veronica perched herself close enough to him to crawl and leave an imprint of her lip-gloss on his temple. Logan stared at that mark until it was washed off in the ocean hours later.

"Oh," Veronica offered, her voice sounding calm and understanding although obviously confused. She could tell he'd dropped his eyes from the sky's horizon and stared at her questioningly, as if waiting for her to draw the line between them, to fill her voice with answers as to why that kiss had happened but there was no distinct answer in her mind, just guilt and confusion. Veronica traced her tiny, skinny fingers over where she'd only minutes ago written an old lover's name.

"He's gone," Logan whispered like a child who had just lost his favorite toy.

Veronica jerked her neck to the side to get a better look at him. Her chest tightened with the idea of Duncan running around, god only knows where, on his own. She didn't know if she should be worried or angry considering their last conversation. If she closed her eyes tight enough and listened to the ocean, breathed in Logan's aftershave, it was like all the times they'd been there before, together with Lilly and Duncan sitting by their sides. A tear trespassed along her cheek and she brushed it away with her sand ladened fingertips as she opened her eyes.

"I know," and she didn't submit any other information to Logan about how or where she may have thought he would go. For whatever reason it was private. Her last conversation with Duncan was not up for discussion, strange as it was, she felt to blame for his disappearance and she had to figure that out all on her own.

Logan didn't ask questions, aware of how Veronica's body language had changed at the thought of Duncan's unknown whereabouts. He paid attention to the way the sky looked as if it was stained with a million different colors that blended and formed to create an incredible color scheme. If he'd been into photography he knew he could've snapped picture upon picture of the sky, not knowing what it held past the colors, clouds and stars peeking through as the moon came out.

"Man in the moon," Logan pointed to the craters in the moon that formed a face.

Veronica smiled and pushed her arms up so that her back straightened. She brushed the sand off her hands, and placed them in her lap. She batted her bright eyelashes and looked over at the moon that was just a small shadow beside the clouds and scattered canvas of colors.

"Lilly used to say that some idiot had come up with the idea of 'the man in the moon'. It made her angry that people continued to believe such a nonsensical idea." Veronica said, slanting her lips into a frown at her own mention of the girl they'd both lost.

Logan didn't seem to notice the evident change in her face, as he was too involved in his thoughts about the moon and Lilly. "She just liked to make people think about things that hadn't been embedded there since the beginning of time," he believed and glanced over at Veronica with a shoulder shrug and smirk.

Their eyes interlocked and the kiss flashed in both their minds causing Veronica to put her head down and stare at her hands. A gush of wind scampered past them, blowing Veronica's blond tendrils into the air, leaving her neck bare.

Logan suppressed the urge to grab the back of her neck and bring her lips close to his by stuffing his hands deeper into the sand, watching an ant crawl up his arm. He flicked it off, with the edge of his fingernail, jkm once it reached the dip near his elbow. He heard Veronica sigh, loudly and turned his head almost cracking his neck in the process, to peek over at her. She opened her lips and ran the pink and red of her tongue over her top lip before whirling around to stare at him.

"If you say one word about how I kissed you first I swear I'll throw sand in your eyes," Veronica threatened while gripping a pile of sand tightly, forcing it to sink into the crevasses of her palm.

Logan laughed, shaking his head. The idea of blaming her for being the one to lay that lopsided kiss on the side of his mouth that had led to the even larger monumental kiss had occurred to him but that was before he'd had time to think it over. Veronica had been there for him when she probably should've just told him to fuck off, but she was there and loyal to him. He'd done and said things to her that he now regretted, blaming her for the Kane's name being destroyed while he should've been more concerned about how and why Lilly was killed. Veronica was another woman in his life he didn't want to let down, or make fun of and so the idea of being childish or cruel to her had gone out the window the moment he'd fallen into her arms crying like a baby over his mother's death.

"I wasn't going to," he thought out loud, gazing up at the moon again.

The sky was getting darker and the waves crashed more loudly than before. He wasn't sure how long he'd been there, how long she'd been there but he was sure that time could be dispensed like a fragile object to never be forgotten around Veronica. Time didn't exist in the way it had when he was with Lilly; with Lilly, time was always catching up to them in heavy amounts leaving him sick and broken when she was gone from his clutches.

Lilly was like a disease, one he couldn't get rid of no matter how many drugs he took or how much alcohol he consumed, or how many other girls he kissed to get back at her. She never faded away from his insides, even when she was dead. He finally felt like she was gone, at least partially as if she'd left a blessing for him and Veronica that had been stained into his heart so that he was capable of letting her go even if the memories remained. He wondered if Veronica felt it too or if he was imagining the feeling all on his own but he couldn't ask her. Logan didn't have the guts to ask how she felt about Lilly or even Duncan, afraid of what the answers would be. Maybe someday he'd ask her but not tonight.

"Why did you?" Logan asked, referring to the kiss. "Kiss me?" he added, hands still dug into the sand.

The sound of the waves crashed around them, loudly in each of their ears. Veronica felt chills run up and down her spine and she reached her hands around the top of her arms rubbing away the cold. Logan noticed and wished silently that he hadn't left his jacket in the car. She didn't look at him but she started to breathe rapidly, as if everything was crashing in on her.

"Because you punched 'jump street' for me," she answered calmly slanting her neck to the side to take in a glimpse of him. She flickered her pearly white teeth at him, then turned her attention back to the sky, wishing she could take a picture of it to enlarge and splash across the ceiling of her room. "It just _felt _like the thing to do," Veronica finished, smacking sand onto her jeans.

There was a small gap between them, of space and air, which she was comfortable with. It let her know that he wasn't looking to jump her bones or to even hurt her with damaging words. It was just enough space to fill her with warmth and understanding. He wasn't there because he had to be but because he wanted to be and the gap would be breached eventually if they wanted it to. It wasn't just a kiss for him either and that much she knew by the way he snaked his hands into the crumbly sand, timidly.

A few minutes passed.

"Veronica," Logan didn't know what else to say but he needed her attention.

Once she flashed her ethereal looking eyes at him he bridged the space between them, confidently. The fabric, of the kaki pants he wore, slid with the coppery color of the ocean's floor. She watched him move his body forward in slow motion and instantly responded, feeling somewhat validated that she was not alone in having feelings that surpassed that one kiss, the one fleeting moment of ecstasy.

The palm of his left hand was hot and brittle from the sand alongside her cheek. He smoothed his free hand off the sand and laced it with her fingers. Their lips met, gingerly at first, warm and wet, no tongue just lips forming like clay. She took a deep breath, closing her eyes and let herself fall into his weight before opening her lips just enough for his tongue to slide in delicately.

All either of them could hear was the hum of the ocean and the beat of each other's heart pounding heavily like drums against the other's chest. The sky faded away with its pretty colors and lifeless clouds, leaving only the moon to gaze at them with hauntingly filled eyes of wonder.

The End


End file.
